Low adoption of sustainable intensification technologies hinders achievement of their potential impacts on increasing agricultural productivity. Proper targeting of locations to scale-out particular technologies is a key determinant of the rate of adoption. Targeting locations with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics significantly increases the probability of adoption. Areas with similar biophysical and socio-economic characteristics are referred to as recommendation domains (RDs).

Recent studies assessing agricultural policies, including the EU’s Agri-Environment Scheme, have shown that these have been successful in attaining some environmental goals. In Finland, however, the economic situation of farms has dramatically fallen and hence, the actions do not result in social acceptability. Sustainable intensification is a means to combine the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. Here we introduce a novel land use optimization and planning tool for the sustainable intensification of high-latitude agricultural systems.

An urgent need to stop degradation is frequently cited as support for climate mitigation efforts involving forests. However, lessons learnt from social science research on degradation narratives are not taken into consideration. This creates a risk of problematic degradation narratives being used to legitimise forest carbon projects. This study examined a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forest plantation in Uganda, where incomplete and partly contradictory evidence on land use change was interpreted in a way that overemphasised degradation.

Land as an essential resource is becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth. In the case of the Kenyan coast, population pressure causes land cover changes in the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is an important habitat for endangered species. Forest and bushland have been changed to agricultural land in order to provide livelihood for the rural population who are highly dependent on small-scale farming. Unclear land rights and misbalanced access to land cause uncontrolled expansion and insecure livelihoods.

The construction of consistent time series of land use presents a key challenge when accounting for elective land use-based activities under the Kyoto Protocol (wetland drainage and rewetting (WDR), cropland management (CM) and grazing land management (GM)), in which current land use-driven greenhouse gas emissions are compared to a reference situation in 1990. This case study is the first to demonstrate the feasibility of using high-resolution land-use proxies from different datasets for Kyoto accounting in a data-rich case study region in Germany.

It took scientists more than three decades to transform a perceived desertification crisis in the Sahel into a non-event. Looking beyond the Sahel, the chapters in this book provide case studies from around the world that examine the use and relevance of the desertification concept.

The study examines long-term land use/land cover change (LUCC) at a finer scale in a semi-arid region of India. The objectives were to study and quantify the spatiotemporal LUCC and uncover the major drivers causing the change in the Mula Pravara river basin, which is located in a semi-arid region of Maharashtra state, India.

The complexity of tenure claims in the informal settlements has been difficult to incorporate into the formal systems owing to their dynamic and continuously changing nature. Innovative tools are therefore required to capture these claims. This requires the development of a cadastral data model specifically for informal settlements that would document such claims to make it easier to manage the current situation as well as prepare for future formalization processes such as regularization or relocation.

Community land and natural resources lie at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural Africa. While the Zambian government acknowledges customary tenure, it has not established required legislation needed to secure it and support to communities in their efforts to protect their lands.

Les agrumes représentent la première culture irriguée dans la plaine de Trifa (Berkane, Maroc) avec une superficie en extension continue. Ceci accentue les pressions sur les ressources en eau déjà limitées dans la région. De ce fait, une gouvernance efficace et rationnelle de l’eau agricole s’impose. Dans ce travail, nous proposons une approche basée sur les observations satellitaires pour appuyer la gestion de l’eau d’irrigation consommée par les surfaces agrumicoles.

Mobile Terrestrial LiDAR (Light Detecting And Ranging) (MTL) is a new technology adapted to increasing need of 3D geo-referenced data. The system requires an integration of laser scanners with other sensors of navigation such as GPS and INS and inertial measurement unit. This fusion allows direct georeferencing of point cloud data. As well as the practical accuracy, the theoretical accuracy of raw data also deals with the investors in the mobile mapping systems. This study evaluates the theoretical accuracy of point clouds produced by MTL system through the error propagation theory.

Groundwater is an important natural resource for domestic, agricultural and industrial use. Today, due to climate change, population growth, advanced irrigation practices and industrial uses, the demand for groundwater has increased considerably, and needs to be assessed. This article aims to delimit the potential groundwater zones in the Sandougou basin using GIS and remote sensing. The multi-criteria decision analysis technique (MCDA) is used by integrating different thematic layers.